Business application development
Web application development for work that has outgrown its tools
Browser-based applications your team can use anywhere, built around the process rather than assembled from whatever the last product could be made to do.
The situation
When the tool becomes the constraint
Most web application projects start the same way: something that worked at a smaller scale has stopped working, and the workarounds have become the process.
- A process spread across a spreadsheet, an inbox and a shared drive
- People waiting on someone else to run a report or make a change
- No way to see the current state of work without asking
- Different teams keeping their own version of the same list
- A desktop tool that only works in the office
- Rules enforced by training and memory rather than by the system
What it covers
What a web application build covers
Process and workflow
The steps, approvals and handoffs made explicit, including the ones currently happening in email.
Interface design
Screens designed for the people who will use them all day, which is a different problem from designing a marketing site.
Roles and permissions
Who sees what and who can approve what, enforced by the system rather than by convention.
Integration
Connections to the finance, CRM and operational systems the work already depends on.
Reporting and dashboards
Live views of the work, so status questions stop being asked of people.
Performance and accessibility
Fast on ordinary connections and usable with a keyboard and a screen reader, both of which are far cheaper designed in than retrofitted.
How we work
How a web application is built
In increments, with something usable early. The most expensive mistakes in software are design mistakes discovered late.
Discover
Understand the objective, the users and how the work actually runs today.
Prototype
Put a working interface in front of the people who will use it before the logic behind it is built.
Build and integrate
Deliver in increments you can use, connected to the systems around it as it goes rather than at the end.
Launch and iterate
Release, watch how it is really used, and adjust. First versions are always partly wrong.
Outcomes
What you are left with
- One place where the work happens, visible to everyone who needs it
- Rules enforced by the system rather than by memory
- Access from anywhere, without a desktop install or a VPN hop
- Reporting from live data rather than a weekly export
- A codebase you own, with the documentation to go with it
- Something that can be extended rather than replaced when things change
Platforms and tooling
What we build with
Front end
- React
- Next.js
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
Back end
- .NET
- Node.js
- Java
- Python
- REST
- GraphQL
Data and hosting
- SQL Server
- PostgreSQL
- Azure
- AWS
- Docker
Named as platforms we work with, not as formal partnerships.
Common questions
Questions we are usually asked
A web application works on every device with a browser and needs no install or app store review, which usually makes it the right first move. A native app earns its cost when you need offline use, camera, location or push notifications as core features rather than conveniences.
It depends on scope and integrations, but you should expect to be using a real increment within weeks rather than seeing nothing until the end. We give a scoped estimate after discovery rather than a figure before anyone has seen the process.
Partially, yes — a web application can cache data and queue actions for when the connection returns. Full offline working with heavy local data is one of the cases where a native app is genuinely the better answer.
Designed in rather than added later. Keyboard operation, colour contrast, focus handling and screen-reader semantics cost very little during the build and a great deal to retrofit. If you have a WCAG requirement to meet, tell us at the start.
Normally that is most of the point. A web application that cannot see the data in your CRM or finance system just becomes another place to rekey things.
Either of us. We can deploy into your cloud account and hand it over, or host and manage it ourselves. What matters is that the choice is deliberate rather than inherited from whoever built it first.
Talk to someone who has built this
Not a salesperson working from a form. Tell us what the problem looks like and someone who has delivered this kind of work will come back to you, usually within one working day.
Book a free consultationRelated
Where this usually connects
- Customer and member portalsSelf-service for the things people currently email or phone about.
- Bespoke business applicationsSoftware shaped around how you work, when nothing off the shelf fits.
- Mobile app developmentiOS and Android apps connected to the systems behind them.
- APIs and microservicesConnecting platforms that were never designed to be connected.
- Systems integrationMaking the systems you already own talk to each other.
- HostingManaged hosting for the systems we build and the ones you already run.